


i’ll gather up the avenues and leave them on your doorstep

by htbthomas



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Amy POV, Chance Meetings, Crossover, Crossovering Exchange, F/M, Felicity POV, Gen, New York City, Police, Robbery, fluff with plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2156502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cheesecake, Cops and Vigilante CEOs. A strange combination, but this is New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i’ll gather up the avenues and leave them on your doorstep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lulabo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lulabo/gifts).



> Title from “Manhattan" by Sara Bareilles.
> 
> Thanks to my trusty beta, blithers!

Oliver sits there across from her, resisting checking the time, like, actually visibly resisting, the way his fingers keep twitching toward his phone and then curling back in on themselves. He sighs. “Is it really that difficult a decision?”

“Are you kidding?” Just because he never lets a molecule of sugar past his lips doesn’t mean Felicity has to suffer. “Have you seen all the choices? Strawberry shortcake cheesecake, devil’s food cheesecake, carrot cake cheesecake,” she runs her finger down the list to the diabetic-friendly cheesecake, “even a sugar-free one you might like.” She notes his infinitesimal head shake and plunges on. “I keep bouncing between the chocolate swirl cheesecake and the original one.”

“Get them both.”

Felicity lowers the _Junior’s_ menu and gives him finger guns. “I like the way you think.” She uses one to poke him in the hand. “But. We are in New York, at a place famous for their cheesecake. You are trying both of them. One bite each.”

He doesn’t protest. She nods her head in satisfaction and flags down a waitress.

* * *

“Santiago, how can you even _think_ of not stopping!” Jake gesticulates so broadly with his arms that he almost takes out a bicyclist. Almost, thank god. “Who comes within a block of that delectable goodness and doesn’t stop?”

“There was a robbery at the Duane Reade,” Amy explains for the fourth time. “We’re investigating, returning to the precinct, that’s it.” 

“Aw,” he says, kicking at a pebble on the sidewalk. Like a five year old. Sometimes she thinks his time undercover didn’t change him at all. “Bet Scully and Hitchcock get donuts every time they work a case.” 

“And you’re holding them up as a shining example exactly why?” The truth is, she’d _kill_ for a slice of Junior’s cheesecake right now. But they’re behind on their caseload, and the quicker they can solve this one, the quicker they can get to the next, and then she can turn in a report to Holt at the end of the month that she can be proud of. That’s much more important than some silly piece of cheesecake. 

She starts walking faster and it makes her smile that he has to jog to catch up. “Hey, anyone with that kind of dedication is to be admired, like Edison with the light bulb, or the first guy to put hot sauce on chicken wings. We think of the two like PB and J now, but I mean, think of how many different condiments he must have tried first…” 

She pushes through the doors into the drugstore without holding them for him. Seriously, ever since he came back, it’s like he’s working overtime to remind her how immature he can be. She holds up her badge to the nearest employee. “Detective Santiago. Your manager around?”

Jake pulls in beside her, huffing a little. “Damn, Santiago, you take a no-nonsense pill this morning?”

* * *

The cheesecakes arrive, monstrous things, delicious-looking. Felicity’s fork hovers in the air, swinging back and forth like some sort of dessert ouija board—seriously, she has no control over it. Oliver watches her with the tiniest of smirks. She places the fork back on the table with a clank. “I can’t do it.”

“Decide?”

“Yes. I thought that once they were in front of me, a choice would naturally present itself, but nope, nada, uh uh.”

“Want me to go first?”

“Would you?”

He nods. “We’re in New York.” Then he adds with a voice full of Arrow-y gravel, “I am trying both of them.” At her pleased giggle (she should have gotten him out of town ages ago), he takes a fork to the original cheesecake.

“Going with the classic, I see.” She watches his face, which screws up in thought for a moment. “Good?”

“Excellent.” He tackles the chocolate swirl next, moving it around his mouth for a few moments. “They’re both great.”

“Which one is better?”

“Depends on how much you like chocolate.”

Felicity growls a little. “You were supposed to be helping!”

Oliver holds up his hands in defense. “Hey, I—”

At that moment, there’s a scream, which cuts off at the sound of a gruff voice. “Everyone down on the floor, keep quiet, and put your valuables where we can see them!” At the cash register, a gunman trains his weapon on a trembling waitress. Felicity’s eyes cut to the side entrance, which is covered by another man. Both are masked. There might be another in the kitchen from the utter quiet that has settled in the diner.

Oliver tenses, his cellphone disappearing into his pocket like magic. Felicity has already hit the police alert on her own phone as they slowly lower themselves to the floor.

“And if anyone has called the cops, I swear to God—!” The gunman at the register fires a warning shot into the ceiling, and bits of tile float down onto the waitress’ brunette bob.

Felicity and Oliver give each other a look, “Too late,” Felicity mouths. “Can you..?” She jerks her head toward Triggerhappy. 

He shakes his head, and whispers back, “Too dangerous.”

He’s right. “No talking!” Side Entrance shouts at them, stalking forward and pointing his gun at the back of Oliver’s head.

* * *

“Thanks,” Amy says, closing her notebook with a snap. “We’ll be in touch.” She walks toward the entrance, Jake following at her heels.

“Are you sure?” He gets in front of her, blocking her path. “They’re gonna be closing for renovation soon. So we should go just for that. Or to celebrate my return!”

“I have a couple of nights’ lost memory already in the name of ‘celebrating’ your return. I don’t need—”

A voice blares out of the radio at Jake’s hip. “10-20 in progress, 386 Flatbush Avenue Extension, nearest units report.”

Amy and Jake’s eyes meet, and for the first time this evening, Jake is all business. “That’s us, partner.” He brings the radio to his mouth. “Detectives Peralta and Santiago, responding. How many suspects?”

“Unknown, but armed and presumed dangerous.”

“Copy. Send for backup. Approaching scene.”

As he’s been reporting in, they’ve already jogged to the corner of Fulton and DeKalb. It’s hard to see anything that’s going on from a block away, but the lights are still shining through the wall of windows on to the street. The two are quiet as they approach, guns out. If they can surprise the robbers, they have a better chance of taking them down. The few pedestrians that notice, quickly step out of their way. The Brooklynites, anyway, this is New York, after all—the tourists whimper and push back against the wall. Amy hopes none of them give the game away.

Jake signals Amy to get against the wall, that he will move ahead and scout the scene. This is where they’re best, in the thick of the job, protecting their city. It’s one thing they can completely agree on. She watches his face as he moves, sees an unreadable mask settle over his face. He peeks in the window, a dart of his head, and then he’s pressed back against the wall. Two, he signals with his fingers, masks over faces.

Two against two, then. She takes a calming breath and nods. He signals that he’s going to take the front entrance, she should try the kitchen. Then he’s gone.

* * *

Felicity slowly slides her phone out on the tile floor to show she’s cooperating, entreating Oliver with her eyes, not here, not now. The second gunman’s aim is steady, and at this range, he won’t miss. Oliver’s eyes turn flinty, but he doesn’t move.

Eyes narrowing, Side Entrance takes a step toward them, his aim steady. Then he stomps on Felicity’s phone. She lets out a little squeak of disappointment, and let’s be real, anger. Just when she gets a phone set up just the way she wants it...!

Then from behind her, she hears a door slam open. A voice shouts, “NYPD! Put your weapons down!” A few diners squeal in reaction. 

Side Entrance’s eyes raise toward the sound of the cop’s voice, and his gun with them. “No way, man, there’s more of us than you.”

Felicity studies Oliver. Is there only one cop? Felicity wishes she could see over the table better—there’s no sound of sirens from outside yet. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be here any minute.

She hears another shout from the kitchen area, and then the shuffling of steps approaching. The cop at the entrance says, “My partner over there’s got one of your buddies. Let’s just settle this whole thing before anyone gets hurt.” So there were three bad guys. At least three, anyway.

“Still more of us,” Triggerhappy points out.

Oliver has gone almost as still as a statue, all except the flexing of the muscles in his forearms. He’s getting ready to act, she just doesn’t know how—

Oliver’s feet suddenly twist around Side Entrance’s ankles and the man goes down, gun clattering to the tiles. With one swift punch, the gunman is out, head lolling to the side. 

Triggerhappy makes a break for it. Felicity dares to raise her head above the table, and she sees him sprint to the other end of the restaurant and out the side entrance.

“Stop!” The cop shouts, chasing after him. Felicity turns back to Oliver, but of course, he’s gone, his target’s hands already bound by a zip tie.

The other cop, a woman holding the third man in cuffs, only hesitates a second before re-cuffing him to a pole. She quickly steps around customers still on the floor to check on Oliver’s victim. After noting his unconsciousness and checking the zip tie with an intrigued nod, she turns to Felicity. “You do this?”

Felicity shakes her head.

The cop turns to the cashier. “Can I leave these two here? Backup is only a minute out.” The cashier nods dumbly before the cop dashes off after her partner. 

“Who the hell carries zip ties for a dinner out?” Felicity murmurs before pocketing her smashed phone and following suit.

* * *

Amy has no idea which way Jake went, but she follows the trail of discomfited pedestrians around the corner. Her mind is still trying to wrap itself around this version of Jake—a Jake who went from middle-school-class-clown to stone-cold-agent in two seconds flat. She turns the corner and skids to a halt, scanning the street. Long Island University’s campus is across the way, and if they went in there, who knows how long it will take to find them.

She pulls out her radio. “Peralta, what’s your location?”

She waits for a moment, but there’s no answer. A disturbance near the DeKalb Ave. subway entrance catches her eye, and she clips the radio back to her belt. She half hopes the suspect went that way because he’ll be easier to catch, half dreads it because the subway is still full of people at this time of day and the man is armed.

As she jogs toward it, she sees people streaming out of the entrance—thank god they have the sense to get out of the way, She runs down the steps, the flow of traffic parting around her and her raised pistol, the staccato clack of her boot heels reminding her of the gunfire she hopes to avoid. As soon as she gets through the nearly-empty turnstiles she sees them. Their suspect is at the edge of the concrete, his back to the tracks. His hands are up, but the gun is still in his hand, Jake’s gun is trained on him, but she knows he won’t shoot unless absolutely necessary.

Jake must see her out of the corner of his eye. “It’s time to give up. My partner and I have you trapped.”

“No way.” Then the idiot jumps backward onto the tracks and sprints into the tunnel.

This would normally be the moment for Jake to let loose with a string of colorful language or creative metaphor, but he’s silent, jumping after the guy without a second’s hesitation. 

“Jake!” she calls after him. He could get himself killed—the digital sign over the track is announcing the arrival of the Q train in only two minutes. “Jake!”

* * *

Felicity gets to the platform just in time to see the gunman leap onto the tracks and the male officer follow suit. The female officer calls after him, but doesn’t join him, instead watching him for a frantic moment and then running for the station office. No sign of Oliver.

“Please tell me you at least found a hat,” she tells Oliver, as if he can actually hear. They came without their comms, without his bow, without anything except apparently zip ties, Oliver’s deadly reflexes… and her tablet. She pulls it out of her handbag and quickly pulls up the master control grid for the New York City subway system. Even if the female officer can convince the manager to call to stop the train, odds are that Felicity will be faster. She punches in an emergency stop for all trains on the Q line, and throws in the B and R lines for good measure. It’s gonna cause a lot of commuters a lot of grief, but better that than the alternative.

In the distance, she hears the screech of brakes, and breathes a tiny sigh of relief. The female officer leans over the edge to look into the tunnel, then calls out a thank you to the station manager and jumps down herself. Felicity smiles. Now she’s played tech wiz to two police departments, though this one will never know.

* * *

Amy sprints so fast she’s sure her heart is going to give out. She can’t see Jake or the suspect anywhere ahead. The tunnel is lit well enough, so they must be a really long way off. Jake, you crazy fool…!

There’s a sudden thud, and a “Whoa!” of surprise. 

Amy stops running. “Jake?”

Just as before, there’s no answer. She walks farther into the tunnel, choosing her steps more carefully now, gun held at the ready. When she finally reaches Jake, he’s looking down and shaking his head slowly back and forth. At his feet lies their suspect, out cold and hands bound with zip ties. Just like the other guy back at Junior’s.

“Who did this...?” she asks, just as perplexed.

Jake takes a quick breath in, then blows it out. “Not me. Some, like, superhero vigilante or something.”

“Super Dan?” she asks incredulously. That guy couldn’t knock out a cold.

“No… he was like, there, and then gone. Next thing I knew this guy was dropped at my feet.”

“No description at all?”

“Nah… except for a Mets cap.” He holds his hand over his heart, reverently. “Kudos, random do-gooder, kudos.”

She chuckles. As much as she was annoyed with him earlier, she’s glad to have the Jake she remembers back. “C’mon, I’ll help you carry him to the platform.”

* * *

Oliver falls into step with Felicity about a half a block after she exits the stairwell, tossing a Mets cap into a garbage can as they walk. She doesn’t really comment on the vigilantism—he didn’t exactly promise not to practice it while they were here, and it would be harder to get him to stop that as to stop going shirtless all the time. Not that she really minds either of those things.

So instead, she says, “You owe me cheesecake.”

He tilts his head and gives her an odd, smirking look.

“Yeah, _you_ tried both of them, I didn’t get so much as a taste.” She threads her arm through his, giving it a playful squeeze. “But that’s okay. They ship cross-country. I checked.”

Oliver chuckles.

She adds in a no-argument tone, “You’re paying for shipping.”

* * *

Jake and Amy watch the patrol cars buzz away with the criminals inside. After a couple of silent moments, Jake nudges her arm. “Time to finish interviewing the witnesses.”

Amy sighs. She’s tired, and even the thought of paperwork waiting for her doesn’t energize her the way it normally would. The stress of possibly losing Jake after finally getting him back again really wrung her out. And seeing him like that—

She pulls at his shirtsleeve to stop him for a moment. “Hey… are you okay?”

“I’m more than okay, Santiago, three perps with one stone!”

“You know what I mean. The way you just, I don’t know, turned into some action-movie supercop...”

His eyes brighten. “Like John McClane?”

“More like RoboCop.”

His hands clap together. “Ha ha ha, yeah...” There’s laughter in his voice, but not his eyes. What really happened to him this summer?

“Jake…” She reaches out for him, just a little. “I—”

“What?”

The joker façade is back in place, as if she had just imagined everything. She pulls back, deciding not to push. “I don’t think I’ve watched _Die Hard_ in at least three months, not without you around to force me.”

“Are you kidding?” he cries out. “You are watching it _this weekend_ , you hear me?”

She nods and grins when he nudges her arm. Maybe a little popcorn—and a lot of explosions—would get him to open up.

“Now, let’s get in there.” He lifts his hand toward the entrance to let her take the lead. As they re-enter the restaurant, he says, a step behind her, “Oh, man, look at all the uneaten cheesecake on the tables. Now there’s the _real_ crime!”

Somehow she’s not surprised to find a whole original cheesecake in the break room fridge the next day. It doesn’t make it to 10AM.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [‘til black and white begin to color in](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4192083) by [hardlygolden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/pseuds/hardlygolden)




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